A Niagara man sent sexually suggestive texts to his daughter’s 12-year-old friend and showered the girl with expensive gifts, court heard Thursday.

“You may be a good father, but when you’re using your daughter to have communications of this nature and purchasing presents — including a phone so she can further communicate with you — all this points to the grooming of a young child,” Justice Janet Booy told the 49-year-old offender in St. Catharines’ Ontario Court of Justice on Thursday.

“You are a father to a 13-year-old, a role model, and you need to start thinking about how concerned you would be if someone who was 49 years of age started communicating with your daughter in that way.”

The man, who cannot be named due to a publication ban imposed to protect the identity of the child, w

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